


Ghost Town

by Carolyn (3pipeproblem)



Category: Westworld (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:14:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22605313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3pipeproblem/pseuds/Carolyn
Summary: "It's just I've noticed your moods tend toward murderous and there's nobody else around."
Relationships: Lawrence Gonzalez/William
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Ghost Town

**Author's Note:**

  * For [M J Holyoke (wholeyolk)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wholeyolk/gifts).



They retool Lawrence during the nineteen-month stretch after Emily's birth. There are meetings, discussions—hours spent, probably, on his hairstyle alone. His gait. The ten-mile string of curses he knows. William doesn't hear about it; on his first trip back a bandit tries to make off with his horse and William shoots him dead.

“You're in a mood,” Lawrence says.

Night's coming on. There wasn't supposed to be a round two, not this quickly. He was going to go back to Juliet and their daughter. William makes a noise of assent—horsey enough to prick Ned's ears—and leaves it at that while he picks his way down the abandoned street. It's more canyon than town, a place slipping off the earth. They'd skirted craters broad and alien enough to cast his mind toward the moon—some old mining operation, his companion dutifully supplied.

“Ain't complaining. It's just I've noticed your moods tend toward murderous and there's nobody else around.”

William laughs—the sound reminds him of the breeze rustling through this ghost town. “I won't be killing you tonight, Lawrence.” He swings down off his horse, gives Ned a few affectionate thumps. “On that you have my solemn word.”

They fuck by the firelight—not William's preference, generally, fire lending itself to endless shitty metaphors—but there's no arguing with the cold and by the end of it Lawrence's scent's been swallowed up by smoke. He's had Lawrence's hands on him before, at the shoulder, elbow, wrist. Training him to shoot. Prying loose the knife in William's hand, once. He doesn't know whether he wants this to be different or not. 

“What was that for?” Lawrence asks, as though it'd been a sharp kick to the ribs and a kiss on the lips both.

William rolls the question around in his head long enough that it becomes rhetorical, then long enough that Lawrence drifts off. To nobody in the world, he says, “Have you ever done something just to prove that you don't need it?”


End file.
